Is a melee-centric party without a healer viable in Dragon Quest IX?

Question

I have recently started playing Dragon Quest IX, and I was wondering if my party set up would be a viable one to play the game with. I'm just an hour or so after recruiting my party at the Inn:

1. Me (Minstrel, going to become Gladiator eventually)
2. Martial Artist
3. Warrior
4. Mage

What worries me most is the lack of a dedicated healer. However, I initially did create a priest, and it seemed like he mostly didn't do anything, and was a waste of spot where I could have another damage dealer. I'm intending for my Warrior to dabble in Paladin, and as a minstrel I also have some limited healing, plus medicines.

Will this party make it through the game, or does strong healing become a requirement later on? Would it me enough to just have my mage switch to priest when I got to that point?

Answer

Against the different boss, heavy healing is necessary. Starting with the third or so boss, he will hit twice per round, often with multiple target spells (megastorm or something like that in english, for example), so heavy healing is needed. Plus, some can heal themselves, drawing the battle in length. A dedicated healer is, in my humble opinion, necessary. Even with a priest dedicated to healing, I am sometimes constrained to use the healing spells of the main character to keep the whole group alive.

Unless you manage to have a damage output of hundreds of damage per round, you won't be able to kill a boss before he kills you.

Edit : Sometimes use of buffs/debuffs is mandatory. You won't survive a heavy hit with an alteration on your party and you won't damage a boss with protection on him, thus, you must counter those spell with the appropriate buffs/debuffs, and a buffing/debuffing player does not deal damages. Likewise, you have to counter alterations effects (sleep, paralyze, etc.). Also, the time a member of your party is healing himself or another one, he doesn't do damages. Having completed DQ4 and 5, and seeing DQ9 is the same and even harder, I can tell you cannot survive without proper healing.

The healer is quite useless on random monsters encountered on the map. My personal advice : specialize your healer in magic wands, this way you can regen the MP of your healer on the random encounters to arrive fully charged against the boss.

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